Good words:
嗅ぐ (かぐ) - to sniff; to smell
波打つ (なみうつ) - to wave (e.g. in the wind); to heave; to pound (of a heart); to undulate (can also mean to dash against (of waves); to billow; to roll)
びんた - slap in the face; slap on the cheek
バレバレ - (of a lie, etc.) obvious; transparent
舞い上がる (まいあがる) - to soar; to fly high; to be whirled up (can also mean to make merry; to be ecstatic; to be in high spirits)
Lol I’m slowly turning the thread into a book club for cute manga…this pleases me
I ordered the second volume of the tanuki manga, it should be here tomorrow
What the heck, this is so cute, why is it so cute slams the buy button
I welcome this development! I never understood the appeal of kawaii when I was a teenager but the older I’ve got, the more soothing it becomes. On my desk at work I have half a dozen Sylvanian families figures, an Aggretsuko plushie and a polaroid of me meeting Hello Kitty, and some times I have to summon their full cuteness before I reply to a particularly vexing email.
I’m in the office today and managed to read in the park before work again. Finally saw 左右 in the wild, after never really being quite sure how it would be used because there’s no real equivalent word in English.
September 23rd - today was a bit weirder, I had previously typed out the first chapter for a new manga I want to start (王様ランキング) - today I went through the rest of those typed lines to find all the kana words I didn’t know to eventually add to Anki, I’d previously gone through for Kanji words.
In doing this I did work through many sentences and fragments, although I haven’t done any formal breakdowns yet - I’m pleasantly surprised how much I was able to follow.
So far over the first 20 pages of this book I’ve collected 148 kanji or kana words / grammar points, of which 83 have made their way into anki already - the rest are in a spreadsheet waiting their turn.
It’s now after midnight and I’m way too tired to do any more reading.
September 23 Another tiny read:
・Honzuki 6. (25% → 26%)
It doesn’t really feel like much progress, but an average of one percent each weekday is five percent in a week, and I probably read much more in the weekends, so reading even a tiny bit every day definitely adds up
50 more pages of the クドわふた manga I will probably finish it tomorrow.
I would prefer reading my books but playing a videogame in japanese right now is tiring me out. Once I finish the game I will have much more energy for japanese reading I promise.
What did I read: 新完全マスタ読解, 2 medium-length passages (~20min) 暁のヨナ, read again in order to write down the unknown vocab, filled the document for bookclub! Day 15 (9月 23日) 歴史366, 3 stories, ~20min
I can relate to this so much this is the same book I’m using right now, I only finished the first section (comparison) so far, but the passages are written in such eloquent and sophisticated writing styles or have such confusing words, I spend a solid five minutes just staring at it before I mentally prepare myself to face it,lol
I have a question and I hope somebody can help me!
Im looking for a homepage where you can choose your Japanese level and then they will give you some examples of books for your Japanese level. I really cant remember what the homepage was called. I think you also could choose the genre.
If you aren’t already aware, the Wanikani forums have user organised book clubs at different levels where users vote on books and then read them together helping each other with vocabulary and grammar.
You can find a list of these book clubs here
For example the absolute beginner book club can be found here
You can also look over the threads for past book clubs which are a gold mine of material, and if you ask a question by posting in them you are still very likely to get a response.
Day 23: September 23
What did I read?: 夜は猫といっしょ Vol 1
How much did I read?: 7 pages - finished the volume
How long did it take me?: 9 min
Another “check the box” kinda day. At least the “slow and painful death” portion of the project is mostly over. (I mean there’s still a whole other part to the project that probably contains a similar “slow and painful death” portion, but that’s not something we’re gonna think about right now).
I’m missing ハイ☆スピード! a lot right now, you guys I was thinking about them today, it feels like it’s been so long. As soon as this crunch time is over, I’m digging right back in, I’m really looking forward to spending some more time with my swimming children <3
But in the meantime - at least cat is cute xD
Today I learned what kind of cat キュルガ is: a 足長マンチカン - long-legged munchkin! Which is apparently a thing lol, I would’ve thought a long-legged munchkin cat would just be…a cat xD But apparently like 80% of munchkin cats are actually long-legged. Who knew
Also got some choice sequences in this last chapter:
There was a few kanji that I’m seeing alot lately so Imma definitely start to remember them now and I’m happy to say besides that it was all smooth sailing!(¯▿¯)
I really cannot recommend the book clubs enough! I kept putting off reading, but now that I’ve started I am so glad as it has made such a huge difference to my Japanese.
You’re scaring me When I was doing the N3 version I was actually pleasantly surprised that texts felt much easier than what I’m reading for pleasure - mostly that I didn’t need to use dictionary, which was a good thing since that were supposed to be, well, exam texts And well, grammar felt straightforward, and they were so short and friendly.
Now I’m worried how big the gap to the N2 level will be.
September 24th - Another weird day.
Since my copy of レイトン教授と不思議な町 arrived I’ve been itching to start looking at it, but I so far haven’t been able to find a good Japanese script for it.
So I went through the dialogue for the opening of the game up until and including the first puzzle, taking a photo of each dialogue line with my cellphone, and then put them all into a Google doc to type out. I’ve since been able to find snippets of the dialogue online, although often in slightly modified formats.
There are lots of unfamiliar Kanji, but I’ve also had some amazing moments where I was able to guess the reading of completely new compound kanji based on the radicals which felt really great in terms of a “huh, I have made progress!” moment.
My plan is to try distill the core / common vocab & grammar into Anki cards where appropriate like I’ve been doing for 逆転裁判.
Today I typed up 29 screens worth and still have another 12 to do before I’ve finished this section, Oops I didn’t stop and accidentally finished all 41 screens, and I’ve only just scratched the surface in terms of breakdowns which will start after this typing is done next.
As mentioned I’m going in for surgery Monday and I’ll lose the use of my left arm for a while afterwards, so trying to get a bunch of typing out of the way ahead of time.
EDIT: oops, I didn’t stop after writing this and just did “one more” repeatedly until I’d finished, there are still a few very unfamiliar kanji for me to attack by drawing squiggled on my electronic jisho, but that can be a task for tomorrow as its past midnight.
::: TANUKIDATE: 20210923 ::: 
Day 14 (9月 22日) 
At least the “slow and painful death” portion of the project is mostly over. (I mean there’s still a whole other part to the project that probably contains a similar “slow and painful death” portion, but that’s not something we’re gonna think about right now).
I was thinking about them today, it feels like it’s been so long. As soon as this crunch time is over, I’m digging right back in, I’m really looking forward to spending some more time with my swimming children <3
今日の日本の本: 文プロ 
I hope you’ll like it!
When I was doing the N3 version I was actually pleasantly surprised that texts felt much easier than what I’m reading for pleasure - mostly that I didn’t need to use dictionary, which was a good thing since that were supposed to be, well, exam texts 
And well, grammar felt straightforward, and they were so short and friendly.
Day 23
Started section 3, chapter two! I read two pages, instead of a full chapter, because relaxing is important!